The beauty of Canadian abortion politics (bet you never thought you’d read “beauty” and “abortion politics” in the same sentence) is that they have always been very non-partisan. There are pro-lifers scattered about in every party. Did Michael Ignatieff just change the game by declaring his party to be the party of abortion rights? Will be interesting to see just who has to do the backpedalling here, and my guess is it’s not going to be the Conservatives. Tons of faithful Catholics vote Liberal. Or they used to, anyway.

Here’s a good piece about this, with plenty of good quotes:

By bringing abortion into a discussion where it had not previously been, and then making it a key element, Mr. Ignatieff seemed to go much further, says Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary political scientist and former campaign manager for the Conservative party. “Of all the issues that you could possibly raise about women’s health, why would you start with abortion?” Mr. Flanagan says. “What kind of mindset is that that you have to start killing unborn babies in order to help people? It seems to be based on the now discredited theory that poverty in the Third World is based on overpopulation. I don’t think any serious scholar believes that anymore.”

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It appears that abortion in the Liberal ranks just moved from necessary evil to irrevocable right. I don’t think the majority are comfortable that.

When a politician has to engage in word distortions of Orwellian proportions, you know you have a real vote winner on your hands. Yup, he’s really laying down the gauntlet. I challenge you to a duel. Over what? Not telling! That’s the level of Michael Ignatieff’s avowed support for “woman’s rights.” It’s so strong that he can’t even say the word “abortion”.

“We don’t want to have women dying because of botched procedures. We don’t want to have women dying in misery,” Ignatieff told reporters Tuesday after Parliament Hill meetings on international development. “We’ve had a pro-choice consensus in this area for a couple of generations and we want to hold it.“

That leaves me feeling glad I get to talk about why abortion is not part of women’s rights, be it here or overseas, on Friday, at University of Ottawa. Lamoureux Hall, Room 122, 7 pm.

Come one, come all, yes Dr. Carolyn Bennett and Anita Neville, too. Looking forward to it.

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Véronique adds: Aaaaargh! Again, this pro-choice consensus thing! The only place where there is a pro-choice consensus is in the head of pro-choice advocates and politicians.

I like this column by Suzanne Fortin over at No Apologies:

A recent occurrence sums it up nicely for me. I decided to sign up for a publicly funded poetry workshop. The lady who ran it was very sweet, but even though she was very nice, you know when you walk into room full of writers, the liberal worldview predominates. The exercises consisted of free writing that would be shared with the class – because that’s the whole point. Being Catholic and a pro-life activist, the things I think about are worlds away from what other people do. I didn’t want to sow division when I read my stuff because that would just ruin the atmosphere, so I didn’t write what I really thought. Now everyone in the room probably also engaged in a measure of self-censorship. But there’s more to censor when you don’t share the predominant worldview. It was very stifling. I didn’t write what I really wanted to say, which made the material inauthentic. Which is to say, not very good.

For me, this speaks to the notion that pro-lifers ought to be really great at what they do best, be it as artists, writers, doctors, lawyers. But the journey is uphill, because oftentimes in order to get to be the best in your field–whatever that field may be–you have to conceal your own convictions. Those who are imbued with tremendous talent can probably be as public as they like from the get go. For the rest of us, though, we have to plug along and do our best, working and waiting and strategically wondering when and how we can reveal who we truly are. Be it Christian, or pro-life, or gasp and good luck to you–both.

P.S. I don’t know how this happened, but I ran recently into this fellow who competes in “poetry slams” here in Ottawa. He broke out into a poem right there on the spot, which I very much enjoyed, if in part because it was so unexpected. Anyway, he shares in this particular poem (listen carefully) the struggle of being a Catholic Christian in a hostile culture.

A follow up post to the maternal health saga of last week. This week I will be writing Mr. Dave Toycen of World Vision a letter, because this press release says World Vision is partnering with Action Canada Population and Development. I’ll ask why they chose to do so. Does World Vision believe abortion is part of maternal health? If not, how did Action Canada wheedle their way in to this otherwise good group of charities? I need to hear a concrete answer. This press release doesn’t look good.

At this post, you’ll find a YouTube summary of coverage of the March for Life in the US. It gets old to keep hearing about the inaccurate coverage, but this clip is at least a bit humourous, in particular when the narrator points out the inability of CNN to count. Yes, count. Math is hard! Still, I believe it is a skill we can all learn.

One week today I’m going to talk at University of Ottawa on the idea that being pro-life is a distinctly pro-woman stand. It’s all going down on Friday, February 5, at 7 pm in Lamoureux Hall, Room 122, courtesy of the talented students of Ottawa Students for life. On that note, check out Rebecca Richmond’s blog for January 28:

In class this morning I was chatting with the guy who sits next to me about school and mentioned the fact that I was heavily involved with a club on campus. When asked what club, I replied, “Ottawa Students for Life. The pro-life club on campus.”

“Careful. Don’t say that too loud,” he warned with a smile. Why? Because the class we were in was Feminist Theories, a third year Women’s Studies course I’m taking as an elective.

This is the sort of environment a pro-life student faces on campus these days–the hush hush “don’t say that too loud” sort of world. No hush-hush, here, however, I make it my business to be fairly loud. I’m bringing others from the PWPL team too. Black Belt Brigitte, for example, for protection. You just never know what could happen. (That was a joke.)

Wow, the blogosphere and mainstream media is dialing up the hoopla about this Tim Tebow ad that as of yet, no one has seen. There are already spoofs of an ad that no one has seen. Talk about getting bang for your advertising buck.

Anyways, “women’s groups” say the unseen ad is divisive and Super Bowl Sunday is all about bringing people together. I hear they’ve lobbied the NFL to get the teams to agree to play touch football, so that no one gets hurt. And when the game is over, everyone will get a ParticipACTION ribbon and go home smiling. It’s gonna be magic.

Now these women’s groups–now they would certainly never, ever stoop to politicize a sporting event. Oh no. They certainly never would have started a rumour that Super Bowl Sunday is the day with the most domestic violence in a year.

Pro-choice feminists: Pro-choice until such time as someone actually dares to promote a choice they disagree with.